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Thursday, June 5, 2014

With our weather in the mid to high 80's, we seem to have had a very brief spring though the night temperature dropped 59 degrees! Mountain living is wonderful at this time of year.
I want to share a couple of sunsets from our mountain retreat(winter followed by spring sunset) followed by a couple of new plantings and some info on growing microgreens in this dry climate.

Here are a couple of our neighbors..........

I planted this mizuna dry and covered it well in its bed of well moistened soil and topped it with a damp paper towel and an inverted tray. In just 3 days ...in this very dry climate, it was poking up through the soil.
Microgreens need to be watered at least twice a day and sometimes three times each day until they germinate.

And below is buckwheat lettuce...very mild and pleasant. (And a great cover crop for your garden). This is soaked overnight, sprouted a couple of days (it is quick in this dry climate) and only took about five days to be ready to eat at this warm time of year.

Enjoy and please let me know if I can be of assistance. We all need to grow some of our food year round, and this takes a few minutes a day. The greens can be cut and stored for about 7 days.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

We are finally feeling that spring is here to stay. Actually, it is feeling like summer this week.. As you will see in my photos, while I am still growing microgreens, I am also experimenting in my mini greenhouse until later in the summer when we will plant raised beds with fencing to protect from the deer etc.

A friend is also teaching me how to do Bokashi composting...something you start inside with effective microorganisms used to begin breaking down the ingredients. Have any of you tried it?

What are you growing inside or out? Hope you are enjoying the opportunity to grow something for your spirit and your stomach. The tatsoi and kale were started as microgreens and transplanted with a feeding of seaweed fertiizer.

We are also going to grow swamp milkweed for our monarch butterflies. Is anyone growing particular flowers for the butterflies and any other pollinators?

Here is kale from microgreens .

Here is my own salad ready to harvest: deer tongue lettuce and spinach.

In the foreground is tatsoi transplanted from my microgreens.

This is our mini greenhouse to fend off the deer and protect tender plants from many freezing nights we have had this spring.

I have been teaching some folks how to grow microgreens...great way to have your greens if you don't want a garden in the ground. Protect your greens from deer and birds if they are outside ...I use netting when they come out on a table.

About Me

I grew up in New England, owned and managed a country inn and then headed West to Hawaii, and the West Coast. My focus is to support healthy living and farming and encouraging folks to grow more of their own food. I do this as a microgreen farmer and educator. I am very happily married to an awesome man and have one wonderful daughter and and a precious granddaughter born 12/13.